A Brief Survey on Inflatable Deployment Space Structures research and development

Abstract

Deployable structures are widely used in a variety of space spacecrafts and planetary detectors. Under the size and cost limitations of space transportation system, deployable structure usually requires large contraction ratio and high reliability, therefore, development of deployable structures faces a series of theoretical and technical challenges. Space inflatable structure is a key area in space mechanism’s research. Compared to mechanically deployable structures, space inflatable structures have several unique advantages such as much lighter weight, higher packaging efficiency, lower life-cycle costs, simpler design with fewer parts, and higher deployment reliability. Inflatable structures with its irreplaceable advantages had attracted a lot of attentions during the past decades. This paper presents of a brief review of inflatable deployment space structures with stresses on their recent development and applications